Hamlin caps winningl weekend with Southern 500 victory

Monday

Sep 4, 2017 at 5:57 PMSep 4, 2017 at 6:02 PM

Tony Bolick

DARLINGTON, S.C. — Denny Hamlin has this comeback thing down.

One day after winning the Xfinity Series race on the last lap, the Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota driver overcame missing pit road to sweep the weekend and capture his second win of the season and his second career Southern 500 victory at Darlington Raceway. The last driver to sweep the weekend at the track nicknamed the Track Too Tough to Tame — Hamlin in 2010.

“It means everything to me. I mean, as far as I’m concerned, this is a throwback to my history — this is for Roy Hendrick, Bugs Hairfield, Wayne Patterson, Eddie Johnson,” Hamlin said, paying homage to some of his history and Virginia’s short track heroes on NASCAR’s throwback weekend. “Back in 1985 and 1989, I was at Southside Speedway in the stands watching them race and learning everything I could from them and this is a throwback to them and their history.

“I mean, this is the Southern 500. This is the granddaddy of them all. I’m so happy to be in victory lane at Darlington. This is where I got my very first start in Joe Gibbs Racing,

so this track, these fans mean a lot to me.”

With the leaders using strategy of short-pitting, Hamlin’s crew chief Mike Wheeler made the call to stretch it out and make it on one more stop.

“Tried to make sure we made not the wrong call, so we were doing our numbers, and I seen everybody else pitting, and ultimately just made sure we tried to give our driver the best chance to win, even though it might not work in our favor,” he said. “I didn’t think once he missed pit road we had a great chance anymore.

“I knew he gave up 10 seconds on the leaders, and ultimately as much as I was trying to coach him to get mad … I knew it was hard to make up 10 seconds over one stint, but I’m proud of the fact that the car was that fast. Denny is obviously a wheel man here. If you don’t win here with Denny, you probably didn’t have a good enough car. “

On lap 313 when he pulled down to pit, Hamlin came in too hot and slid past the entrance to pit road and had to go back around and do it again. But he stormed back, eating away at the drivers in front of him one after the other, eventually setting his sights on leader Martin Truex, Jr.

Hamlin, on much fresher tires than Truex on a track that literally chews up tires, ran down the leader from over 20 seconds behind in the final 52 laps. As he pulled down to challenge Truex with two to go, the right front tire blew and left Truex to scrub along the wall and then limp home to the finish. Hamlin grabbed the lead and cruised to the victory ahead of teammate Kyle Busch in second for the third straight Toyota victory at Darlington and the first 1-2 finish for JGR since the Brickyard last year.

Kurt Busch, Austin Dillon and rookie Erik Jones rounded out the top five finishers.

Truex crawled around at the bottom of the track to finish eighth, the last car on the lead lap. But he again proved his team’s worth, stealing away the first stage from leader Kyle Larson on the last lap and then rolling to the second stage win to secure the regular season championship and at least a 52-point playoff boost after Saturday’s regular-season finale at Richmond International Raceway (RIR).

“Definitely was a bittersweet night for us. I don’t know if that last run was the longest we made all night.” Truex said. “I was caught up trying to drive my guts out there at the end. It’s unfortunate we blew the tire, but really

proud of everybody on this team for an amazing season so far and to lock up the regular season points is a huge accomplishment for us, for our team.

“Wish we could have won, but

that’s the breaks. Sometimes they go your way, sometimes they don’t and tonight we come up a little short, but definitely a lot to be proud of.”

The series next races at RIR Saturday night with the playoff field essentially set. Truex with his dominating lead, followed by Kyle Busch, Kyle Larson, Kevin Harvick, Hamlin, Brad Keselowski, Jimmie Johnson, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Ryan Blaney, Kurt Busch, Ryan Newman, Austin Dillon and Kasey Kahne all are in with wins in 2017. The other three in on points are, in order, Chase Elliott (737), Matt Kenseth (735) and Jamie McMurray (734). They are comfortably ahead of the rest, secure in their spots by points.

But they are not secure if another driver wins at Richmond. And with three points separating the trio, they will be racing for their post-season lives until there is no chance of a new winner. It also means that drivers like Jones, Clint Bowyer, Dale Earnhardt Jr. in his last season in Cup and Joey Logano — who won the spring Richmond race, but cannot use it because of a post-race violation — are all racing to win, or be left out of the postseason playoffs.

“I just hope we can have a clean race and not have any issues next week,” Elliott said.

“I know the No. 77 (Jones) didn’t win tonight, which is the one that I think everyone…at least we’ve talked about, but one more night,” McMurray said.

“It’s pretty simple. You could almost write an article without talking to me,” Logano said. “We’re on to the next one.”

And Saturday night’s all right for a playoff fight.

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